Cyberwarfare (Cyber War Definition or Cyber Attack Definition – sometimes written in error as Cyber War Fare) can be defined as actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computers, networks, and information systems for the purposes of causing damage or disruption. This damage and destruction can range from tactical to strategic impacts.

Navy Cyber Power 2020 identifies distinct qualities the Navy must possess to succeed, and introduces methods to build a relevant and extremely capable Navy Cyber warfighting force for the future. This strategy examines cyberspace operations from multiple vectors, and considers challenges and influencing factors beyond traditional operational aspects. The way we acquire systems, train cyber professionals, and choose technologies to meet our requirements directly impacts our ability to deliver credible capabilities to deter or contain conflict, and fight and win wars. Implementation and sustainment of this strategy will operationalize cyberspace with capabilities that span all warfighting domains and provide superior awareness and control when and where we need it. Executing this strategy will be hard work and will take a concerted effort at all echelons.

Navy Vision for Cyberspace Operations - The vision to achieve Navy Cyber Power 2020, is that Navy cyberspace operations provide Navy and Joint commanders with an operational advantage by:

Assuring access to cyberspace and confident Command and Control (C2)

Preventing strategic surprise in cyberspace

Delivering decisive cyber effects

The focus areas and their desired End-States of Navy Cyber Power 2020 are:

The Secretary of Defense’s strategic guidance (DSG) highlights the critical role cyberspace operations play in the success of the Joint Force across all mission areas; the documents below focus on the Cyber Warfare aspect of the DSG. The Nation’s success in the maritime domain depends upon our ability to project power and prevail in cyberspace. Navy Cyber Power 2020 strategic initiatives provide the ways and means to achieve and sustain the Navy’s advantage in cyberspace.

We will issue a supporting roadmap detailing lead and support organizations for each strategic initiative and the major actions necessary to accomplish them. However, as cyberspace evolves the Navy’s leadership will periodically assess the strategy of Navy Cyber Power 2020, to ensure it effectively guides the Navy’s efforts to maintain an operational advantage in cyberspace. Furthermore, the Navy will institute a comprehensive set of strategic performance measures to track the Navy’s progress and ensure that our actions are having the desired effect. When necessary, we will adjust course to respond to, if not anticipate, change that continues apace. Our success in cyberspace requires an “all hands” effort, from the Pentagon to the deck plate.

CogniSens has been pushing its NeuroTracker technology toward the sporting arena with some success. But if the goal is to ultimately handle, track, identify, and even target more items accurately, then it clearly seems that there are Cyber Special Operations Force applications. The introduction video is fairly straight forward. Work to progress on monitoring multiple targets continuously for a certain period of time. This will allow you the ability over time to sharpen your skills. But what if the items you’re tracking are both physical and virtual? Would this training technology help?

I believe something like this could significantly improve the ability of a Battle Watch Captain (BWC) or Tactical Action Officer (TAO) for a unit or force in a command center to not only be able to handle more items effectively but to significantly improve the ability to mitigate and prevent “wash over,” when there simply is too much for the individual to process, and possibly improve the OODA loop process for our favor. Obviously this could improve the response time in a physical realm but I’d be very interested in metrics toward tracking and improvement in the virtual or cyber realm. We’re trying to build the best right? The Cyber Warriors that can handle anything – the Cyber Special Operations Forces (CSOF) as it were via some Cognitive Warfare.

We’ve all seen an individual that is able to track and handle 10x to 20x more than the average individual… why not train to be able to track and handle 50x to 100x of the average individual? I think this is a very untapped area of gains the U.S. Military can make. It simply needs to arrive in an affordable package that doesn’t have a massive administrative or cost tail associated.